Tag: Tobacco

Growing Money

Brandon Plumlee // AMH 4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763 Nowadays, we say that money doesn’t grow on trees. In colonial Virginia it didn’t grow on trees either, but it did grow on gold-green shrubs. As can be seen in the Glassford and Henderson accounts, clients to the Colchester store (1760-1761) overwhelmingly used tobacco to purchase their goods and […]

Read More

Tobacco: The Most Versatile Cash Crop

Joseph Swiderski // AMH 4110.0M01—Colonial America, 1607-1763 In colonial America, tobacco was one of the most influential crops in cultivation. Colonies like Virginia profited heavily from its agricultural success. The successful cultivation of tobacco began when John Rolfe planted South American tobacco seeds called Nicotiana tobacum in 1612. From there, “tobacco production spread from the Tidewater area […]

Read More

Tobacco on the Occoquan: A Smooth Sailing Economy

Mercy Alexander // AMH4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763 Tobacco was the foundation of the Chesapeake’s economic prosperity throughout the eighteenth century. By the late 1780s, Virginia and Maryland were exporting some 80,000 hogsheads worth of tobacco yearly to Great Britain, the primary port of destination. In London, Chesapeake planters exchanged their produce for manufactured goods or consigned it […]

Read More

Put It in a Hogshead

Jeremy M. Bell // AMH 4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763 If you had a hogshead, what would you do with it? Would you drink out of your hogshead? How about pack it full of tobacco to save for later? Would you pack it full of sugar maybe? Well, if you were living in colonial America […]

Read More